I want Israel to live in peace with its neighbors and in peace with itself.

Every single pleasure I can imagine or have experienced is more delightful, more of a pleasure, if you take it in small sips, if you take your time. Reading is not an exception.

Fundamentalist s live life with an exclamation point. I prefer to live my life with a question mark.

Writing a poem is like having an affair, a one-night stand; a short story is a romance, a relationship; a novel is a marriage-one has to be cunning, devise compromises, and make sacrifices.

Words create conceptions and self-conceptions and ultimately nations. They can start and stop wars. They can would and heal. Choosing words carefully is a moral responsibility.

A conflict begins and ends in the hearts and minds of people, not in the hilltops.

All of my novels are democracies.

The only way to keep a dream, any dream at all, to keep a dream perfect and rosy and intact and unsullied is never to live it out.

The opposite of compromise is not integrity. The opposite of compromise is not idealism. The opposite of compromise is fanaticism and death.

I wrote The Same Sea not as a political allegory about Israelis and Palestinians. I wrote it about something much more gutsy and immediate. I wrote it as a piece of chamber music.

Now, Israel is a fulfillment, and as a fulfillment, it is flawed. The fact that it is flawed is not so much a testimony about the failures of Israel. No, it is a testimony about the nature of dreams.

At the end of the day, it's still a show about guys who ride extremely fast motorcycles for a living.

Nature is the difference between the soul and God.

When I first started, I was kind of surprised that anyone would ever hire me at all. So I took everything that I was offered.

The attempt to silence a man is the greatest honor you can bestow on him. It means that you recognize his superiority to yourself.

If we do not help a man in trouble, it is as if we caused the trouble.

Only in Christ can men and women find answers to the ultimate questions that trouble them. Only in Christ can they fully understand their dignity as persons created and loved by God.

I want to carve out a serious period of time to focus on the next opera without any distractions. And to do that you need money.

I hope I can make Pakistan proud by bringing home an Oscar.

If you focus on only the seeds in a watermelon, you missed the sweetness of the meat